King Cole Bar

The greatest hotel in New York should have a gem of a hotel bar and sure enough it does. It was at Harry's Bar in Paris that Fernand Petiot created the ...

The greatest hotel in New York should have a gem of a hotel bar and sure enough it does. It was at Harry’s Bar in Paris that Fernand Petiot created the Bloody Mary, but it was here, at the King Cole bar that he perfected it – spicing it up a few notches and renaming it the Red Snapper. Decades on they still call it the Red Snapper and it’s as sexy and spicy as a Bombay supermodel in sari and stilettos. The bar itself is a small rectangular room with towering ceilings and wide glass doors that open out onto the St Regis’s marble floor patio restaurant. Guests, high-rollers and girls with millionaire uncles take seats on the wall banquettes and gaze up at the striking Maxfield Parrish mural of Old King Cole that looms over the scene. (His fiddlers three are in there too!) If you’re feeling peckish you should know that they serve almonds, macadamia nuts and green wasabi peas for snacks. Pure class – Long live the King!